English

Hamiltonicity of Bell and Stirling Colour Graphs

Combinatorics 2025-12-17 v1

Abstract

For a graph GG and a positive integer kk, the kk-Bell colour graph of GG is the graph whose vertices are the partitions of VV into at most kk independent sets, with two of these being adjacent if there exists a vertex xx such that the partitions are identical when restricted to V{x}V - \{x\}. The kk-Stirling Colour graph of GG is defined similarly, but for partitions into exactly kk independent sets. We show that every graph on nn vertices, except KnK_n and KneK_n - e, has a Hamiltonian nn-Bell colour graph, and this result is best possible. It is also shown that, for k4k \geq 4, the kk-Stirling colour graph of a tree with at least k+1k+1 vertices is Hamiltonian, and the 3-Bell colour graph of a tree with at least 3 vertices is Hamiltonian.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2512.13864,
  title  = {Hamiltonicity of Bell and Stirling Colour Graphs},
  author = {Stephen Finbow and Gary MacGillivray},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.13864},
  year   = {2025}
}